


Second Choices, Second Chances

by TroubleIWant



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff and Angst, archery!, mention of canon MCD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3830587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TroubleIWant/pseuds/TroubleIWant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the threat of the Nogitsune hanging over the pack, Lydia asks Allison to teach her how to use a bow and arrow. It's a happy surprise when they discover something more than friendship practicing alone in the forest. When the unthinkable happens, will those lessons be Lydia's salvation after all, or only a happy memory?</p><p>And:</p><p>“I just don’t know why I can’t make it work,” Lydia complains, hating the whine in her voice. She can’t help but feel like knowing how to use a bow and arrow will turn her into someone more like Allison: more decisive, independent, strong. Of course it doesn't really work like that. “You’re explaining perfectly, I feel like I understand... but then I can’t get my arms to cooperate.”</p><p>“I have an idea,” Allison says quietly, pressing the arrow back into Lydia’s grasp. Her smile goes fond, deepening the dimples on either side of her chapstick-pink mouth. “I know you can do this, Lydia. Intellectually you understand, but maybe what you need isn’t more thinking, at all.”</p><p>“Then what…” Lydia starts, but she’s cut off by Allison stepping in close behind her, a light touch on her waist and hand.</p><p>“Here, try again,” Allison says softly into her ear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Choices, Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Art by [killerteacell](http://killerteacell.tumblr.com/) \- thank you so much for drawing this! It was easy to make up a story around this super sweet image.

 

_*_

 

_Do you remember? We used to come out here. Before._

_I remember._

 

 

The forest seems peaceful and quiet, right until Lydia tries to focus. As soon as she draws the bowstring back, the trees come alive with shrill birdsong, snapping branches, chattering squirrels and rustling leaves. Her muscles feel jerky and stiff, almost as if they’re fighting against her. She tries to keep the weapon steady despite the distractions, but she loses focus and the arrow slips out of her grasp before she intends. It flies a dozen feet or so before bouncing off the ground - lacking even the force to stick into the earth - and tumbling into the underbrush.

“Lovely,” she snips. She cocks a hip and puts on an irritated pout before remembering there’s nobody around who’ll buy the _oopsies-I’m-just-a-girl_ act. Nobody will smile indulgently at her failure because at least she’s easy on the eyes and that’s all she needs to be. Allison’s the only person here, and she’s the personification of exactly how stupid that line of thinking is. Allison can do anything with her quiet determination, her refusal to let other people define what she’s allowed to be. Lydia shakes her head in frustration at her own laziness - _you didn’t do it right even though Allison explained exactly how, and now you’re playing dumb. Only it’s not pretend, is it? That’s all you really are in the end. Useless._

She gives Allison a tight smile. “Have to say, I don’t really love being a beginner,” she admits. Even said as a joke, it feels almost too vulnerable. This is their second time out already, and still she’s so incompetent...

But Allison’s smile is warm and open, and Lydia can’t help her own expression becoming more genuine, too.

“You’re still learning,” her best friend tells her, ernesty plain in her dark chocolate eyes. With an encouraging pat on Lydia’s shoulder, Allison bounds over to retrieve the arrow. Funnily enough, her words do sooth the sharp inner voice whispering in the back of Lydia’s mind. She is only a beginner, after all, and Allison believes in her.

Learning or not, the next three shots go little better than the first, each one sailing weightlessly past the tree she’s aiming for. The nearest is still a good six inches to the left of the trunk, not even close to the target they’ve pinned there. In Lydia’s hand, the arrows seem to be entirely different objects from the swift, vicious weapons that are loosed from Allison’s experienced hands.

“I’m just not cut out for this,” Lydia exclaims as her next shot goes even wider than the last. She almosts tosses the bow to the ground in her frustrated pique, but stops herself at the last minute. It’s one of her best friend’s most prized possessions, after all. “What was I thinking? I’m Lydia Martin, not Xena.”

Allison frowns at the outburst. “Don’t be like that. What does it matter if some people think you’re supposed to just be the prom queen? You’re not. You’re the smartest person I know, and the bravest. If you want to learn to fight, too, then nobody can stop you. My family thought I was supposed to be a hunter like Kate,” Allison adds with a wry smile. “We always get to choose.”

Lydia’s ambivalent head tilt turns into a reluctant nod. The Nogitsune is out there, and she does want to learn to defend herself and her pack. Not just that, though - she can’t help but feel like knowing how to use a bow and arrow will turn her into someone more like Allison: more decisive, independent, strong. She knows it doesn’t really work like that. Learning to fight won’t make her someone in charge of her own destiny. All the same, she needs to do _something_ to become useful, doesn’t she? Her banshee powers certainly never help her with that.

“I just don’t know why I can’t make it work,” she complains, hating the whine in her voice. “You’re explaining perfectly, I feel like I understand... but then I can’t get my arms to cooperate.”

“I have an idea,” Allison says quietly, pressing the arrow back into Lydia’s grasp. Her smile goes fond, deepening the dimples on either side of her chapstick-pink mouth. “I know you can do this, Lydia. I still remember how _you_ coached _me_ through relearning to shoot after the Nematon ritual - you knew all about the different draws, how to hold the bow.... So I think you’re right, intellectually you understand. Maybe what you need isn’t more thinking, at all.”

“Then what…” Lydia starts, but she’s cut off by Allison stepping in close behind her, a light touch on her waist and hand.

“Here, try again,” Allison says softly into her ear. The words are so close they tickle the fine hair at the back of Lydia’s neck. Unlike before, the forest stays supernaturally quiet, still enough that all Lydia can hear is her own heartbeat.

Allison is so close that her breasts keep brushing up against Lydia’s shoulderblades. It shouldn’t be that strange, they hug all the time, they’ve changed clothes in front of each other for God’s sake. They’re both girls and that’s what girls do.  All the same, the intermittent contact seems as hard to ignore as the birdsong from before. _Get a grip, Martin,_ Lydia coaches herself sternly.

“Alright,” Allison says softly. “The hand holding the bow should go like this.” She loosens Lydia’s fingers, lining the bow up between her palm and thumb. “See?”

Lydia murmurs her assent. The hold feels unfamiliar, yes, but also more stable than before. It’s funny, she thinks, to have exchanged so many words about the “center of the palm” and “balancing at the crook of the thumb” and “don’t shake hands with the bow” when all it meant was this feeling, this specific combination of pressure and looseness.

“Now your stance,” Allison says, nudging her feet an inch wider. “Keep your feet here, but turn back away from the target and close your eyes.”

Lydia obeys, and with her eyes closed she’s even more aware of her friend, directly behind her. The light pressure of her fingers on Lydia’s arm and the small of her back feels more present than anything else. _Archery_ , she reminds herself. _Fighting the nogitsune, being useful. That’s what you’re here for._

“Now keep your eyes shut and aim for the target again - just go with what feels natural.”

“How can I aim if I can’t see?” Lydia complains, and Allison laughs lightly.

“I just need to check where your neutral twist is, so we can see if you should switch to a closed stance. You’re not actually going to shoot, just show me what feels right.”

 _This_ , Lydia’s mind supplies. _This feels right._

She draws the bow, feeling how much steadier the motion is now that she’s holding the weapon correctly. She turns to the side, feeling the tight stretch of her belly, imagining she’s aimed right at the target. She hears Allison make a small, interested noise.

“Here,” she says, pulling on Lydia’s hips so her feet shuffle slightly. Surprised, she loses her balance and stumbles back into Allison’s chest. They both startle into laugher.

“Sorry, I was just excited - You can open your eyes,” Allison says, which Lydia does. She tries to ignore the flush she feels creeping out across her cheeks.

“You should probably be in an open stance, get you hips a bit more squared towards the target,” Allison explains excitedly. “That’ll help with your aim, I should have guessed when you kept going wide to the left.”

“How will standing differently help me aim with my arms?” Lydia can’t help but ask.

Allison dimples at her again, and her breath catches. “You’ll see.”

Lydia allows herself to be arranged into an open stance, her hips turned just inside of 90 degrees towards the designated target. She doesn’t stumble into Allison again, but she does think about how easy it would be to fake it.

Once her feet are placed satisfactorily, Allison takes her wrist, adjusting it ever so slightly, and with her other hand she keeps Lydia’s elbow raised and steady. The pose still feels unfamiliar and Lydia can feel the strain in her shoulder and back muscles, but it’s also steady and grounded in a way she hadn’t accomplished from trying to imitate what she’d read.

“I think this is helping,” Lydia says, though she tries not to be overly hopeful that Allison’s hands-on lesson will solve her trouble. It’s true that her body feels better prepared to shoot like this, but on the other hand Allison touching her is making it impossible for her mind to focus on what she’s doing with the bow.

“That’s good!” Allison chirps. “Now, you’re going to try shooting again, okay? We’ll see if if it’s really working.”

Lydia takes a deep breath, squaring her shoulders while she tries to maintain the precise pose Allison’s set her into. She draws the arrow all the way back, flexing the bow.

“Perfect,” Allison breathes into her ear, as if speaking too loudly will ruin her control. “Focus on the target, not your hands - don’t fight your breath, just feel it moving through you. You’re going to release on the exhale, okay?”

Lydia does as her friend says, settling into the feel of her body rather than trying to catalogue and assess each part of it. Each inhale brings the clean, soapy scent of Allison’s shampoo.

“Don’t tense up,” Allison instructs, brushing gentle hands down Lydia’s side in a gesture that should be more calming than exciting - but all the same leaves a trail of tingling anticipation in its wake.

Lydia steels herself to release the arrow, to see if the better feeling of her stance turns into actual results - next exhale, she tells herself with each breath. Okay, but the _next_ one she’ll do it. Allison must sense her hesitation, the burgeoning anxiety about failing.

“Imagine it’s Peter,” Allison says with a hint of wickedness. That thought certainly jolts Lydia back into the moment. She feels her eyes narrow and her jaw tense without even meaning too. She can imagine Peter in front of her, at her mercy, waiting for her arrow to go right through his throat. She can almost see his smug face as she pulls back that last tight inch, breathes out, and eases her fingers to release the string in one smooth motion.

The arrow flies with purpose for once, shooting towards the makeshift target and jabbing into the red circle right at the center. It doesn’t quite have the force to stick into the tree, but it had hit the target - the bullseye!

“Aha! Hah!” Lydia cries, fistpumping before she can tamp the excitement down. She shouldn’t be so excited about this, not when a shot like that one would barely even slow down the real Peter.

But Allison’s jumping up and down beside her, even more enthusiastic than she is. Allison is _proud_ of her, even if it’s not a perfect hit. Knowing that she’s impressed Allison lights something fierce and hungry in Lydia’s chest, far disproportionate to her success. It’s breathtaking and strange, and Lydia just can’t figure it out. Why on earth does she feel so alert to her friend’s moods recently?

But then, it isn’t that recent, if she’s honest. And it isn’t so unfamiliar either.

It was like this with boys, years ago, back before she learned exactly how to play her looks and words to advantage. She used to feel like this when she was just an anonymous freshman and all she wanted was for Jackson to notice her, to prove that she was the best by picking her out of the crowd. Back then she’d felt this same nervous attendance to Jackson’s reactions to her, she’d had this same hungry burning feeling when he laughed at her joke, complimented her skirt. It’s been such a long time since she felt so giddy and eager but she knows what this is. It’s a crush.

Only it’s _Allison_. She shouldn’t be inserting a sexual element into what’s going on, just because someone is finally seeing her as more than the queen bee to date or imitate. Of course Allison’s brave and wise and sweet and yes Lydia’s noticed her long lashes and the curl of her dark hair but it’s not... It must be that she’s not used to having close friends and she’s confusing what she feels for romance. Allison doesn’t want that, not from Lydia. She’s got Isaac now. Allison’s told her more than once how that relationship is mostly flirtation and physical release, of course. But all the same. There’s what Allison has with Scott. That kind of love isn’t something that goes away, and it’s not something that Lydia can compete with. That she _wants_ to compete with, she corrects herself. She’s Allison’s friend and that’s enough.

“You did so good!” Allison says again, stroking her arm down Lydia’s from shoulder to elbow, leaving a tingling line of sensation.

Lydia nods, swallows, puts on a smile. It’s enough.

 

They continue practicing as the sun’s light goes soft and warm in the late afternoon. Finally, Lydia’s arrow flies true more often than not. This time it spears into the tree with a thunk, and sticks there, quivering. Lydia allows herself a small, satisfied smile. She’s getting the hang of it, after all.

“Oh, look at you!” Allison exclaims, clapping lightly in a way that manages to seem authentic rather than mocking. “You’ll be as good as me in no time.”

“Don’t,” Lydia scoffs. “You’re the bad-ass hunter, sweetie. I’m just trying to be a damsel in slightly less distress.”

She means it as a joke, or at least half way, but Allison turns to her with a serious expression. “Lydia, you’re not! No, look at me - you’re not helpless. You keep using your banshee powers to help us, even when that means finding bodies and being in danger. You still try. And how you survived everything with Peter… you’re so…” Her expression’s gone a bit far-off, uncertain. Lydia hangs on her next words. She’d believe anything Allison said next, accept any categorisation.

But Allison breaks off with a bright smile, reset into a cheerier tone. “And look what you can do! Not very damsel-y, is it? Peter should watch himself.”

The arrow’s still stuck to the tree, right in the center of the target where she shot it, and it’s maybe not perfect, but it’s good. It’s good, and she did it herself.

“Well, alright,” Lydia laughs. “Not a damsel, then.” She’s giddy with the small success - and maybe even more than the success itself, she’s giddy with the crazy idea that such a little thing is all it takes for Allison to be happy with her. On impulse she and leans over to give her friend a peck on the cheek, a quick expression of her appreciation, someplace to put her overflowing emotions.

She only means it in that carelessly affection way that best friends get to be physical with one another, like how they clutch at each other in glee at lacrosse games. Something childish and platonic because they’re only girls... but Allison must misunderstand because she turns towards Lydia in surprise rather than offering her cheek, and Lydia’s lips catch the side of Allison’s mouth.

Allison gives a little “ah,” of surprise at the contact, parting her lips. Lydia can taste a hint of her minty chapstick because for a second she’s opened to the kiss as well, the tiniest brush of her tongue on Allison’s lower lip, a sliver of moisture slick at the center of the sticky drag of their mouths that is quickly transforming to something entirely _not_ platonic.

“Oh,” Allison breathes.

Lydia goes rigid, backs up a step with no idea what to do next. Allison’s brought her fingertips to her own mouth, pressed where a pinkish hint of Lydia’s lipstick had smudged.

“S-sorry,” Lydia says, reaching out, too, as if rubbing away the lipstick will updo whatever shift she’s started. Only Allison’s fingers are still there and their hands end up tangled together, dropping slowly between them still clasped.

It’s Allison who leans in this time, her eyes fluttering closed as she presses her lips to Lydia’s, softly but with clear intent. Lydia melts into the kiss, the intimacy of it after not connecting her heart and body for so long. She hasn’t kissed like this since Jackson left for London, certainly not when she’d tried to distract herself with Aiden. All that time, and she could have been looking at what was right in front of her.

The kiss starts as only the firm pressure of dry lips pressing together, but a breath later it merges with something less chaste, still soft but coloring towards passion. Lydia tilts her chin up and to the side, flicking her tongue out against the seam of Allison’s mouth. Parting her lips as well, Allison draws her in close by the waist. It’s so easy to slot together after that, Lydia’s arms wrapping around her friend’s shoulders on instinct. She’s leaning into the kiss with her whole body before she knows it, pouring all the desire that’s been building into the contact. Allison is surprisingly strong as she absorbs the pressure of Lydia’s weight.

They finally break for breath, gasping and flushed, still clinging to each other. Lydia blinks in surprise to find the forest darkening, the sun falling below the ridge.

“We should go,” Allison says, soft and regretful. Her hands drop from Lydia’s hair to her shoulders, and slide down her arms to clasp hands again.

Lydia nods. “Yeah.” Her heart is pumping so fast she can feel the pulse in her throat and wrists. What if this has changed everything between them? Or worse, what if it’s changed nothing?

“I... I’ll see you next time?” Allison asks, dipping her chin to look at Lydia under her lashes, squeezing their hands where they’re still linked between them. “Maybe, um, take you for coffee after?”

“Like a date?” Lydia’s almost nervous to ask.

Allison beams, though, shining and gorgeous. “Exactly like a date.”

Lydia breathes with relief, bites her lip to keep back words too heavy for their budding dalliance. They walk back to their cars hand in hand, though, Allison’s thumb stroking her palm, and before they split Allison gives her another shy peck, right on the lips. Lydia feels like she’s walking on cloud nine, thinking _next time_.

Only, there isn’t any next time at all.

 

*

 

Lydia’s throat is raw from screaming. Ever since Allison’s death, she wakes herself with her banshee voice more nights than not, recalling that one terrible moment of clarity when she’d known without seeing exactly what was being taken from her. She screams, trying to drown out the rest of the world and grasp onto the teasing hint of “what if” that stalks the edges of her dreams, a whisper of vibrating sound that could almost be something other than her own voice.

With the distractions of the benefactor resolved, the summer’s gone dead and quiet. Everyone’s drawn off into their own worries, and there’s little to distract her from the dreams, from missing Allison. She sleeps, screams, eats, screams, and goes to Deaton’s for training.

Or at least, that’s what Deaton calls the hours where she’s made to sit in his office and listen to him give her incredibly vague, metaphor-laden advice. The man doesn’t seem to have the least information about anything she’s curious to know. He lectures her about the old stories that hint at what she might be able to do: sensing where death is, has been, will be. But what use is that, knowing when death is coming? Why would she ever want to know when there’s nothing to do at that point, nothing she can do to stop it?

She hates that she’s still so tentative about her powers. Everyone was worried about Liam controlling the shift, but werewolves? Please, that’s simple. Super strength, glowy eyes, find an anchor, blah blah blah. Despite his anger issues, Scott’s newest project has basically worked everything out with some minimal training from Scott and a zen-lite riddle about the sun, moon and whatever. Being a werewolf seems about as hard as falling off a log. Banshees, on the other hand? Even Deaton doesn’t know what to do with Lydia.

“Why does it even matter,” Lydia sighs, interrupting Deaton’s latest monologue about how to tell a death scream from a scream that’s to drown out other noise and connect with another plane or… something. “Even if I can tell what type of scream it is, what can I _do_? it’s either already happened or it’s just a possibility. And, no offence, considering the way we live someone I love is pretty much always possibly in mortal danger.”

Deaton frowns.”No, a banshee’s scream is always true.”

“I screamed my lungs out for Derek and he’s not exactly dead, is he?” Lydia raises her eyebrows primly. “So I’m hardly infallible.”

Deaton frowns harder, his brow uncharacteristically creased. “There was other magic at play in that situation.”

And of course Lydia asks what that means, but he assures her it doesn’t have to do with anything she needs to worry about. Frustrating, like everything about Deaton, but she lets it go when it becomes clear he intends to hold back. Stiles can dog him about Derek and the full shift if he’s so inclined - and to all indications he is - but Lydia doesn’t really care what it means that Derek lived when he should have died. It’s nice that he’s around, but there are people who aren’t. What Lydia’s interested in, what she needs to control her powers for, is to learn about a death that’s already happened. A prediction that was true.

Lydia needs to know about after.

Deaton seems glad that she isn’t needling him like Stiles would, and Lydia takes that as her opening. “But my powers aren’t just about sensing death, right? There’s a connection to beyond. Banshees can… see ghosts, right? Or hear them?” Lydia suggests.

“No, you can’t see ghosts, Lydia,” Deaton says, more confidently than he’s told her almost anything. “There’s no such thing, I’m sorry to say, although they’d be very informative. Nobody knows what happens after death. Unlike werewolves, ghosts really are only stories.”

Lydia scowls at his airy tone, his confidence rapidly sending her into analysis mode, eager to prove him wrong, pick his assumptions apart: “Peter was dead, and I saw him plenty.”

“Ah, that,” Deaton agrees. “That was an apparition, quite different.”

“Ah, of course. An apparition versus a ghost. Totally different.” Lydia hears the way her tone comes out, dry as bone. She can’t help it if bitchiness is her way of dealing with frustration, though. Honestly, he acts like this stuff is common knowledge.

Deaton smiles indulgently. “An apparition is a projection of a dying person, not a dead one.”

Lydia sniffs. “But Peter _was_ dead. Derek ripped his throat out. He was _incinerated_.”

“He was also an Alpha,” Deaton says like that’s some sort of rational correction. “Yes, the body was for all natural purposes destroyed. But we’re discussing the supernatural. There was enough left to keep his soul tied to this plane, for a time, and he was able to contact you and use you to restore his body.”

And just like that, Lydia’s sinking horror at hearing “no such things as ghosts” flips to an almost euphoric high. Because if there’s no such things as ghosts, than anything she hears must be what Deaton said, an apparition, something not quite dead, not quite out of reach. And what she hears is Allison.

It’s not just in her head.  She does hear her sometimes, at night when she screams, she’s sure of it. She’d only listened to those whispers in hope for a connection to the beyond, a way to tell her friend how sorry she was for not saving her, to hear that she was forgiven, but this… if Deaton’s correct, and she can’t connect with the beyond, then Allison’s still alive in some sense. In some way she’s _here_. She’s not an Alpha, obviously, but there’s enough magic permeating this damn town that Lydia can’t dismiss that there might be something different keeping her. _The Nematon,_ her mind supplies instantly. _It could be that,_ she thinks with feverish need. _It could be_.

Or maybe she’s just tipping over into insanity after all.

Lydia sits through the rest of the lesson, such as it is, as agreeably as possible. Her thoughts are already miles away, planning. She leaves the vet’s office without telling Deaton anything of what’s truly on her mind. Maybe he knows about the things she’s intending to try and could help, but it’s just as likely that the idea is dangerous and he’d say no, maybe even try to stop her. Lydia can’t risk it, not with Allison. If she needs to, she’ll ask ask forgiveness, but not permission.

 

The next day she wakes early, and rather than clinging to dreams and sleep she’s up and dressed in thirty minutes. For once there’s a reason to be. She drives to the forest, and hikes up to the clearing not so far from the Nematon’s stump where she and Allison used to practice. The woods as peaceful and quiet as ever. If Lydia lets herself forget, it could easily be that same day when they’d been practicing and she’d focused so intently that everything but Allison’s warm touch had disappeared.

The wind is still enough so that she can almost hear the echo of their laughter from that day, which feels like a lifetime ago. It was Peter who told her that her power isn’t the screaming, and Deaton had confirmed; The screaming is to drown out everything else so she can hear.

That’s why she can’t quite grasp Allison’s voice: Her bedroom is awash with her own pain, the house is full of the background noise of all of her mother’s conversations and TV shows and adult troubles, and the house itself is in the middle of a whole town of other people adding their voices and movement to the soundscape. There’s so much extra noise there that each sound overlaps with every other. Of course she can’t single out Allison there.

But here, there’s nobody else to confuse her senses. The strongest pull here is her connection to Allison, to their time spent training and falling in love. She shuts her eyes, listening past the silence. She can’t consciously hear anything yet, but she can almost feel a hint of vibration in the air...

Lydia takes a deep breath and screams. The sound echoes in the woods, an inhuman shriek that drowns out all else. The ringing still in her ears fades out gradually, and she opens her eyes from that still center of her power.

“Allison,” she breathes. And it is, it’s her, stepping out from the treeline just as real and whole as Peter had ever been. How could she be only imagining this, the perfect dimpled smile Allison is giving her as she tucks a curl of hair behind her ear? Lydia’s drawn her back into the world where she seems just like a living person, real and whole and within reach.

“Do you remember?” Allison says, looking around like she’s getting used to being this present in the world. “We used to come out here. Before.” Her hands brush over her own stomach.

“I remember,” Lydia whispers. Of course she remembers. “Allison, is it really you?”

That inspires a brief frown. “How could you ask me that? I’ve been trying to reach you for so long. ”

Lydia smiles through her tears. _Because Scott’s your first love, because we barely even kissed. Because I was sure that I’d lost you._ “Ally, Deaton says that if I can see you you’re not all the way gone. Something’s keeping enough of you back, like his Alpha powers did for Peter and with him I… Can I bring you back?”

Allison’s fond looks fades, and she hunches her shoulders uncomfortably. “It’s not that simple.”

“But it’s possible?” Lydia presses. “It must be. If you’re still here, Deaton said...”

Allison interrupts her rambling. “What happened with Peter isn’t normal, or easy. Bringing someone back isn’t the kind of thing you get to do without a price.”

“I don’t care what it costs, for you,” Lydia insists. “I can do it. I promise.”

“You already did it,” Allison says with another sad smile. “With Peter. That’s the price - you only get once.”

Lydia goes still, her stomach dropping sickeningly. “No, but that doesn’t _count_ ,” she insists. “I didn’t even mean to, it doesn’t… that’s not _fair_.”

Allison shuffles her feet and Lydia sees how the leaves and twigs don’t move. Such a small stupid obvious thing but she never noticed how Peter hadn’t moved real things, either. _Stupid, stupid._ She’d let him manipulate her, not even knowing what he was taking.

“I just wanted to see you,” Allison says. “Isn’t that enough? To spend a bit more time together, say our goodbyes. You don’t need to bring me back. You can’t.”

“Anymore,” Lydia tests, only half a question. “Because of _Peter_ ,” Lydia breathes in rough gasps, still reeling with horror. As if having his continued existence on her conscience isn’t enough.

Allison shrugs. “You only get one. It’s alright, you didn’t...”

“I didn’t choose,” Lyda says. Her hands are balled into fists now, literally trembling with rage. “And it is not _alright_. This isn’t how our story goes. I am not a fucking damsel, I’m not the girl whose choices are all made for her. Peter doesn’t win. I don’t accept that.”

A slow smile builds across Allison’s features, surprised but also edged with recognition of the same determination that’s always been the backbone of both of them.

“Okay,” she says. “Peter doesn’t win.”

 

Peter’s grateful to be broken out, and surprised- though he tries to play it off as all part of his grand scheme. It’s funny, in the end, how easy it was to free him from what was supposed to be the Guantanamo Bay of supernatural prisons. To be fair, Stiles had helped with duping the key cards, and Derek had leant a hand distracting the doctors and orderlies with pointed questions about his uncle’s treatment. Still, it was easier than Lydia had feared to get him out of the prison and now he’s here, leaning against a tree that, if he looked closely, is pocked with the scars of Lydia’s training. In other words, exactly where Lydia wants him.

“Well, this dramatic breakout has all been very exciting,” Peter drawls. “But I think you understand why I’d like to leave this delightful little town as soon as possible. You said you’d tell me more about why Malia was hidden from me once we were alone, so...” He raises his eyebrows at her condescendingly.

Lydia nods. She did say that. But she’s not looking at Peter, her eyes are on Allison right behind him. He thinks that he has her alone this time, but he doesn’t. He thinks that she’s at his mercy and it’s so strange that he doesn’t notice it’s really the opposite. All his smug self satisfaction, and and can’t see something so clear.

Still, he does notice that Lydia isn’t paying attention to him.

“Lydia darling, listening to voices are we? If you’re not going to tell me about Talia’s decisions about my daughter, I’m afraid I’ll have to be going.”

“I’m sorry,” Lydia says quietly. And strangely, she is.

“Sorry for wasting my time?” Peter drawls, turning with his arms clasped behind him like he’s giving a lecture. “Forgiven. Though I admit I thought you were smarter than… that.”

He trails off into a tense, considering silence as he see’s that she’s holding a weapon now, the one she’s stowed carefully in a hollow trunk the night before. Allison’s favorite.

And Allison is still with her , not able to touch and correct her like before but it’s good enough for Lydia, now, just to know she’s near. She can handle the rest herself: Stance slightly less than 90 degrees, bow cradled against the meat of her palm, elbow high and straight, bowstring right by her mouth.

“Now, Lydia,” Peter says, smiling his charming toothy smile, “You know you can’t hurt me with that little toy. Don’t do anything we’ll both regret.”

He backs away from her though, and she follows him carefully, driving him back where she needs him.

“You won’t regret it, you’ll be dead,” Lydia says, edging forward. Just a bit more.

“Lydia,” Peter tries again, his composure starting to crack around the edges.

“You made me save you,” Lydia interrupts. “You used me. Tricked me.”

Peter huffs a small, dismissive laugh. “I needed your help and I took it. You didn’t even know what you were, and…”

“I know now.”

His face twists into a sneer, all attempt to be depreciating falling away. “You stupid girl, you think you have a clue what you are, what your powers can do? You don’t even…”

Her arrow catches him right between the eyes, a perfect shot guided by Allison’s training and all her practice since. And perhaps more than training and practice, maybe her hand is guided by some ancient rule of magic where desperation means added strength, where what you need equals what you get, as soon as you let yourself admit it.

“You only get one,” she explains to his body. “And I didn’t choose you.”

Now that the ritual’s started Lydia almost feels that she’s in a trance again, the way she was when she drugged the pack and took Derek under the full moon. Beyond thought or control. Only this time, rather than a sick clawing against what she’s about to do she feels as at ease as if she was being drawn down a river, flowing towards home.

She looks at the Nematon, just a few feet away from Peter’s body, knowing before she sees it that the roots have taken his blood as sacrifice. The first step. She kneels down beside it  and watches a tiny sprig unfurl from a dead twig, impossibly healthy and full. Lydia presses her painted nail to the juncture, clipping it off. She packs a handful of dirt around the clipping, knowing that tiny roots are sprouting into the clod with more than natural speed.

She must drive to the graveyard, since she suddenly finds herself walking towards Alison’s final (not final) resting place. She doesn’t have the slightest memory of it, though, no more than the times when she’s unconsciously found bodies. The tiny sprig of the Nematon feels almost hot with power in her hands.

Scott’s waiting at the grave, which he’s already dug up like he promised. He looks nervous, though Isaac’s promised to make sure nobody interrupts them. Lydia had offered that he could be there, if he wanted, but he’d said no. It still feels a bit strange to talk around what Allison meant to both of them, and Lydia had accepted his answer greatfully.

“You’re sure?” Scott asks, earnestly. His eyes flick from the small green plant back to her eyes. She just nods.

When they open the coffin, Allison looks just the same as she had the day they’d buried her. Lydia could almost cry with relief at the proof; it’s true, Allison’s being held here, isn’t really gone. It feels so much more right to take her out of the earth than it had to lay her to rest.

Lydia sits on the ground and pulls Allison up, so her friend’s head and shoulders rest in her lap. Lydia’s hands tremble as she places the piece of the Nematon with Peter’s sacrifice on Allison’s stomach, where the wound left by the Oni’s sword still remains. Peter’s resurrection had been biting and blood and violence, had required midnight and the full moon. Allison’s is new growth and afternoon sunlight, as warm and golden and bright as she had been (is. Will be). The plant knits itself into Allison, becoming a part of her and finally healing over the old, near-fatal wound. The connection to the Nematon’s power that had kept Allison from leaving is even more powerful now, enough to bring her fully back to the land of the living.

“Is it working?” Scott asks quietly, and Lydia looks up at him to see her own worries reflected. He’s keeping a respectful distance from them, and it strikes her again how doing this together feels like an act of love from both of them, rather than a competition.

“I think so,” she says. The wound is gone, but Allison’s still not moving, not waking up. “Come on, Ally,” she whispers, bending to place a desperate kiss on Allison’s mouth.

As she moves back, she feels a tiny puff of air against her face and then Allison’s eyes are open and she’s blinking up at the sky. Lydia half laughs, half sobs. Seeing her friend whole and moving like this feels like a miracle rather than the nightmare it had been to see Peter returned.

“You did it,” Scott exclaims. Allison turns her head and gives him a sleepy smile, then searches out Lydia. When their eyes meet, her smile deepens, full of warmth and love.

“You brought me back,” she says.

“I did,” Lydia says, blinking back tears that are happy and sad at the same time. “I choose you. Is that okay, being brought back like this? Are you okay?”

Allison reaches up and pulls Lydia down to her, kisses her deeply. They start to laugh a bit in the middle, the kiss going sloppy and graceless and altogether joyful.  
“It’s better than okay,” Allison says. “It’s perfect. I’m waking up in the arms of my true love.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading! You can find me on [tumblr](http://troubleiwant.tumblr.com/) for general Teen Wolf trashiness and Sterek.
> 
> A big thank you also to [Lysaacs](http://lysaacs.tumblr.com/) for all her help with the reverse bang!


End file.
